OK, fine. Whatever you say. Senator Max Baucus has finally come forward with an attack on his attackers who wondered, as did I, if booze was responsible for his bizarre behavior on the Senate floor last week. Bauchus called the whole thing outrageous.

“When his friend of 30 years Ted Kennedy, with whom he had fought so hard to provide health care to children, was being used as a cheap foil to oppose health care reform, Senator Baucus gave a passionate defense. Unfortunately, those who want to kill any meaningful reform, turned it into an unfounded, untrue personal smear internet rumor.

Thanks Max. But you still didn’t explain this. I mean, could you just tell us why you seemed so incoherent?

Mellow out, really. After a month filled with stories about this tool giving his girlfriend pay raises and trying to have her named a U.S. Attorney, getting liquored up on the floor would be the least of his sins. Exit question: Is MSNBC siding with conservatives on this one?Watch the clip from his speech that they chose to illustrate this story and tell me they aren’t.

As one of my listeners said last week … doesn’t this whole thing just make you long for the days when Ted and Chris would come back to the Senate after one of those 3 martini lunches.

“When his friend of 30 years Dean Martin, with whom he had fought so hard to provide entertainment to the people, was being used as a cheap foil to oppose hour-long comedy variety shows, Foster Brooks gave a passionate defense. Unfortunately, those who want to kill any meaningful entertainment, turned it into an unfounded, untrue personal smear internet rumor.

I recall from my history learnin' that the House and Senate allowed drunkeness only when it was raining out. When a colleague showed up plastered on a sunny day, he was excused because "somewhere, surly, in these United States it must be raining!"